Lately I've been itching to reorganize. Reorganize my work schedule; reorganize my glazes; reorganize my bisque; reorganize my finished ceramics.
I'm trying not to schedule any work for Thursday and Friday. Oh, sure, we all know me -- I'm still going to DO work -- but it's catching up here and there, straightening and cleaning things I haven't had time to during the week... that sort of thing.
Last week I ordered some small pantry shelves that I could use in my office to store my most often used glazes. Since I do glaze in there, and it's inconvenient to be carrying (or trying to carry) five or six bottles of glaze across the house past tripping cats, underfoot dogs, and a closed door.
Moving a good portion of my glazes out of my studio meant that I could stretch out my ever-increasing stock. I'm trying to get to a point where for items that move quickly, that in addition to the finished object I also have at least one in bisque (for restocks or custom orders) and one in greenware. But I am seriously running out of room in my studio. So moving the glazes out cleared up about three shelves.
Ideally I'd like to have dedicated areas for greenware, for bisque, for finished ceramics I sell at HaldeCraft, finished ceramics I sell through Wild Iris Books, and finished ceramics I sell through Etsy. All in the same room, but on different shelves so that at a glance I can see what's moving quickly (er, or not). There's no way, without a major shelf rebuild, that I'll get everything for HaldeCraft on one shelf -- that picture to the side doesn't have any of the mugs, for instance, or the pitchers. Those are all on a different shelf across the room.
A shelf that suddenly, yesterday, I realized I had a problem with.
See, I was taking some things off to shuffle around, and I noticed in taking out one of the mugs was wedged into the shelf pretty tightly between some books below it, and the other shelf right above it. Now, those are on a bookshelf that still has books on it, everything sort of piled around so I can get as much to fit as possible. And I thought, since the room is not exactly air-tight, that the books were just swelling what with the insane humidity we have. I didn't really think too much about it once I got the mug un-wedged and everything else on that shelf moved around to be a little more spacious. I went on about my business and when I got back to the shelf above it, about half an hour later, it just looked... a little tilted.
Now, granted... I have to work to get to that shelf. For one thing, I am short, and it is a top shelf. I need to stand on a chair to get to it. For another thing, my friend Juanita gave me two molds that are the size of baby elephants and I unfortunately have nowhere to put them other than right in front of those shelves. So I have to lean as well as stand on something to get to it. So I thought maybe it was my vision was wonky since I was leaning. I stepped back. I went across the room. I looked again. No, that shelf - that shelf that had about $200 worth of merchandise on it (not to mention books) and about $600 worth of merchandise below it (with more books, and also close to my pouring table).... that shelf was definitely leaning.
Leaning forward.
Two of the four pegs that hold the shelf in place had sheared off.
Needless to say I moved everything off the broken shelf as fast as I could, both ceramics and books.
Then I shook for a while.
That Poor Man says he'll be able to fix it, but... sigh. I think maybe this is a sign that I should do what's been nagging at me; a sign that I should move the bookshelves out of the studio and put in some right proper heavy-duty ceramic shelves.
---
Cross-posted on my personal blog.
